


the future is bulletproof

by glitterforplaster (ineffableangel)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: ? idk. math. coffee. kissing., Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 05:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2376014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffableangel/pseuds/glitterforplaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Natasha cracked S.H.I.E.L.D. open and spilled its guts for the world to see, the results of Zola’s algorithm went with it. Now, with a click of a button, you can read your own future. Of course, there’s no guarantee any of it will happen. The future isn’t set in stone. But Steve has faith in his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the future is bulletproof

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Slytherout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherout/gifts).



> warning for something i hesitate to call ptsd, because i do not have ptsd, so i stuck to what i knew i couldn’t fuck up, i.e. low-level dissociation and panic attacks. so, warning for general winter soldier-related trauma, you know the drill.
> 
> happy birthday, eileen.

Steve Rogers does not find Bucky Barnes. Bucky Barnes finds him.

Bucky finds him in 1931, in the middle of the schoolyard, trying to take on four boys with big hands and surly mouths, the front of his good Sunday shirt stained red with blood; and again in 1943, twelve years later, trying to take on just one, saying, _“I had him on the ropes,”_ worn and weak as he catches his breath.

Bucky finds him in the crowd, too, later that night. He says, _“Be careful,”_ when he means: _Don’t die._ When he means: _If I come home, I want to come home to you._

Bucky finds him, always and without fail. No matter how far they run, how hard they pull, they can never break the string that ties them; one tug and they fall back together, like into bad habits.

Bucky finds Steve. And then, just once, in a dark room in Austria, Steve gets to find Bucky.

This is the way it has always been: them against the world. Side by side or back to back, raising hell in a Brooklyn alley or living through it in the trenches of war, it never mattered as long as they were together. Where Steve was, Bucky was sure to be no more than a step behind. Where Bucky went, Steve followed.

Until he couldn’t any longer.

 

 

*

 

 

Steve Rogers found Bucky Barnes once, but Bucky Barnes has found him a million times over.

In the schoolyard, in the alley, in the crowd; in the twenty-first century, unexpectedly; on a rooftop, on a highway, on a helicarrier; in the Potomac, inhaling river water and losing blood like an incompetent nurse on the vitals shift.

Then, without a word, he disappears. Steve looks for him in washed-up HYDRA bases, in Cold War bunkers, in the places they'd frequented as kids, some of them now only empty lots; in every country he can name and some he couldn’t even if you unfolded a map and pointed them out right in front of his face.

Steve does not find Bucky, so Steve goes home.

 

 

*

 

 

It’s a Tuesday, and it’s raining. Not especially impressively, but enough that Steve’s hair sticks to his forehead after only a few minutes paying the taxi driver and lifting his luggage from the trunk.

S.H.I.E.L.D. always insisted on escorting him in one of their armored cars whenever he came back from assignment, and he would always argue for something simpler, something a normal person would arrive home in. One mouthy kid from Brooklyn hardly warranted so much pomp, government operative or not. It’s nice to be able to choose for himself again, without fear of a clearance override in the interest of national security; but it’s strange to have silence where there used to be orders.

By the time he reaches the front door of his apartment (new, since his last one took a particularly nasty blow to the living room wall), his jeans are clinging uncomfortably to his skin. He stops noticing it the moment he sets his suitcase down and realises someone has broken in.

There are scrapes on the lock, metal against metal, either from high-tech devices or the regular old hairpin trick. The dust he’s sure gathered on the doorknob while he was away has gone, brushed away by human hands. Sloppy work; it could be a really unlucky burglar, but things in this kind of life are never that easy.

He doesn’t let himself pause for too long; he doesn’t know if there’s visual on him, but he doesn’t want to chance it. He pats his pockets for his keys, frowning and taking his time, playing at forgetfulness, even though he knows exactly where they are. He needs a second to breathe, to remember his training, to push past the fact that there’s no longer any backup to support him if this turns sour. He’s been alone before. He can do it again.

He unlocks the door. He hesitates to bring the suitcase, wavering between keeping the act of nonchalance or his hands free for a fight. After a moment, he grabs his signature weapon, but leaves the rest. Fuck the visual; they have to already know he’s inside, and not getting shot is a little more important than maintaining appearances for storybook villains he can’t even see.

He gets halfway around the corner, shield gripped so tight his knuckles pale, before he spots the shadowed figured sitting at his kitchen table.

The shadow looks up. It has startling blue eyes, and it's drinking from Steve’s favourite mug, the one Natasha bought him, with World's Best Grandpa printed neatly along the side. Something silver glints in the darkness as it shifts to meet him.

The scrapes around the doorknob weren’t lock-picking tech, at all. They were the marks of a metal hand.

“Bucky?” Steve breathes, and it’s a question for a number of reasons: surprise, disbelief, and a genuine asking. _Are you Bucky, this time, or someone else? Are you my Bucky? Can I trust you?_

“Steve,” says Bucky, and his voice is rough like someone dragged his throat over hot coals. “I remember. I can’t stop remembering. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Steve echoes. He doesn't reach for the light switch. If Bucky wants it dark, he won’t throw them into harsh relief.

Bucky winces, fingers curling and uncurling on the tabletop, like he's missing something, some defense, like he'd rather a gun than a coffee cup. “I know it’s not enough. I know it’ll never be enough. But, yes, I’m sorry.”

“Of course it’s enough, Buck,” Steve says, letting the old nickname-of-a-nickname slip from his mouth without meaning to. His chest aches with all the time they’ve lost. “I just meant— What the hell do you have to be sorry for?”

Bucky sighs, but the way he angles himself toward Steve, toes pointed like a compass, could almost count as a confession. _I still know you. Every part of me knows you._ “Everything. I’m sorry for everything.”

“I forgive you,” Steve says easily, and he means it. “For everything. Always.”

Bucky just stares.

Steve crosses his arms. “I know what that look means. Well, go on, then. Convince me. Prove you’re irredeemable, beyond forgiving. Tell me one awful thing you did in the past seventy years that wasn’t put in your head by—” he grits his teeth— “ _fucking_ HYDRA.”

Bucky takes a shaky breath and leans back in his chair. It creaks under his weight. There’s silence for a long moment, and then, softly, into the gloom, he whispers, “I left you behind.”

Steve smiles. “That’s alright, though,” he says. “You always find me again.”

_(If I come home, I want to come home to you.)_

 

 

*

 

 

Bucky remembers, but he is not fixed. Steve did not expect him to be.

James Barnes shakes in the night, forgets to eat if no one reminds him, flinches whenever he opens the icebox; doesn't recognise his own reflection, and takes showers so hot his skin turns pink and raw just because he can, because he's never before had the luxury of lingering in the bath until the water chills. He apologises for almost everything he does, apologises for dropping something or speaking out of turn or taking up space in the room, in the universe.

Sometimes Bucky will wake and forget where he is, or who he is: how to be a person instead of a breathing weapon.

He's fucked up, no question about it; but how many of those things can Steve honestly say he didn't do, in those first few years defrosted?

( _“Hey,”_ Steve will say, Bucky shivering next him, pressed into his side for comfort or body heat or to remind himself this is happening. _“You don't have to be okay. You're human. You're real. Everyone makes mistakes. I do it all the time, see? I'm real, too. This is real. You're safe here and you don't have to be okay.”_ )

Steve does his best to help, to ease them into a routine, to know when to nudge at Bucky's memories and when to create new ones. He tries being a leader, and then a fellow soldier, and then a friend. But Bucky is constantly moving, a never-ending cycle of trembling hand and anxious mouth, and no matter what Steve does, he never stills. He never seems at home.

( _“Bucky?”_ Steve whispers one night from the floor, his— his— he doesn't know what they are any longer, so much more than strangers but just as estranged— his _Bucky_ having taken the bed at his insistence. _“Are you happy?”_

 _“I don't know,”_ Bucky whispers back. “ _I don't think I remember how._ ”)

They try for a year, and then Bucky leaves.

He slings a backpack over his half-metal shoulder and hugs Steve goodbye, one hand — the flesh one — curling against the nape of Steve’s neck, the sun rising behind him, a train ticket in his pocket. Steve watches him go and tries not to blame himself. This is Bucky’s choice. This is something he needs to do, no matter how Steve worries or begs.

Steve can’t begrudge Bucky his independence — could never resent him for anything, not now, not ever — but he hopes that one day they won’t have to find each other, because they’ll have stopped running.

 

 

*

 

 

In retrospect, when your best friend turned ex-Soviet assassin turned best friend again, of whom you know less than you thought but enough to love him still, leaves you in the dust to find himself, maybe you should chase after him.

 

 

*

 

 

The first Steve hears of Natasha since S.H.I.E.L.D.’s collapse is a text from an unknown number. He knows it's her because she uses a little smiley, and then takes a crack at his age.

_google the leaked zola results :^)_

_srry, ask college intern down the hall 2 google 4 u. im sure she can show u how 2 use the magic picture box :^)))_

He's lingering at a local coffeehouse waiting for a frappe, and when he opens the message he has to bite back his first genuine laugh all day. The barista eyes him sharply, like they're trying to figure out where they've seen him before. In a moment it'll come to them; a history book, a museum, a television interview, the poster in their grandmother's kitchen which she heroically and diligently salutes every morning. It's always something.

 _last time i trusted a neighbor she turned out to be a govt agent + the niece of my old flame,_ he sends back. He knows better than to ask, _where are you?_ or even, _are you okay?_ but he crosses his fingers for Natasha's continued safety.

 _tru,_ comes the reply, mere seconds later. She must have her phone close by, which probably means she's not in a fight, although Steve wouldn't put it past her to text Captain America while she strangles a terrorist with her thighs. _but this 1 is just cute. i checked._ Then, as the barista slides his drink across the counter—

_g2g. check the results. u'll like them :3_

Steve knows he's not getting any more than that, and Nat's probably already ditched the cell, but he still sends _be careful_ and saves the number as a contact. In his experience, it's never hurt to have hope.

He turns on his laptop as soon as he gets home, keys still jangling in his hands, and tries to rattle off everything he knows about Zola's algorithm while his apps boot up. Created by Swiss biochemist Arnim Zola, designed to predict threats to HYDRA’s nefarious plans, leaked by Natasha herself a few months ago during the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was there. He doesn't see what that has to do with him, or how he could possibly _like_ what it might show him, but he Googles it anyway; _steve rogers zola_ , and then _steven rogers zola algorithm_ , no neighbor assistance required.

The second search proves much more useful, bringing up three solid websites, one Wikipedia page, and about eight pages of blogs centered around something called _Starbuck_ and how real it is, which probably isn't a reference to the frappe on his desk. He's pretty sure that's real. Last time he checked, anyway. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.

He takes a sip of his coffee (to make sure), pulls up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s own database and one of the more credible secondary sources, and settles in for a long afternoon of reading.

Four pages into the leaked report and he’s sprinting out of the door.

 

*

 

DOCID: 3445362

**[ T O P   S E C R E T ]**

NOV.  3  2011

CLEARANCE 9 SUBSET ALPHA

FILED BY **[REDACTED]**

STRATEGIC HOMELAND INTERVENTION ENFORCEMENT AND LOGISTICS DIVISION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

ANALYSIS OF STEVEN GRANT ROGERS’ THREAT LEVEL TO CLASSIFIED ORGANIZATIONS

 

S.H.I.E.L.D Operative 414, “Captain America,” Clearance 9

AS PER **[REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED]** ALGORITHM

SUBJECT: ALGORITHM TEST REPORT

RESULTS TRANSLATED AND SUBMITTED BY **[REDACTED]**

Prediction: 2010. Operative 414 will be recovered. **[Confirmed.]**

Prediction: 2012. Operative 414 will be recruited by Nicholas J. Fury, Clearance Level 10, Subset Alpha, Subset Omega. Operative 414 will join an elite team of other superhuman beings. Operative 414 will cease the siege on New York by outside forces. **[Watch this.]**

Prediction: 2013. Operative 414 will discover проект зимний воин. Operative 414 will realize and act upon his interpersonal romantic ties to subject зимний воин of  проект зимний воин. Operative 414 will stop at nothing to recover and rehabilitate subject зимний воин of  проект зимний воин. Operative 414 will not accept failure. **[Neither do we. We must not stand idle. Operative 414 cannot be allowed to achieve his goal. Take action.]**

 **SUBMITTER’S NOTE [TRANSLATION]:** After reviewing these results, I, **[redacted]** would advise the council to consider immediate revocation of Operative 414’s clearance level due to likelihood of discovering проект зимний воин. Termination of Operative 414 altogether is advised.

 

 

*

 

 

This is what Steven Grant Rogers takes with him, in 2015, when he searches for the artist formerly known as Bucky Barnes formerly known as the Winter Soldier formerly known as Bucky Barnes: one bulletproof alloy shield, one motorcycle, one cellular phone, one wallet containing approximately three hundred in hard cash, one leather jacket on which is pinned one “Best Bi” button, and one bloodstream full of bad diner coffee.

He doesn’t have a phone number or an address, but he has a postcard from Pennsylvania and a chemical inability to give up. The postcard has a picture of the Phipps Conservatory on the front. Bucky feels comfortable surrounded by plants like Natasha feels comfortable surrounded by tacky tchotchkes or sharp objects. Like Sam in a kitchen or in the air. Like Steve. Like Steve. Like Steve, somewhere he’s still looking for.

Bucky wrote a few shaky sentences on the back, and dated it five days ago. _There are over 2000 species of cactus. If u own a cactus & forget to water it it will survive. I am OK._

Steve carries that with him as he rides, shield strapped to his back like the weight of the world, nothing but road and motorcycle engine hum and sunset for miles and miles. _if u own a cactus & forget to water it it will survive. I am OK._ He thinks about their Brooklyn apartment and the hot summer evenings they spent on the fire escape, watching the city lights, radio crackling reports from overseas. He thinks about lying on his belly in the mud in Germany and how his very bones whispered, _Thank God we are alive,_ knowing that could change in three minutes. He thinks about the algorithm and Project Winter Soldier and the centuries upon centuries he would wait just to see Bucky again, the years he _has_ waited, the years he has wasted.

HYDRA wanted him dead because glorified computer code predicted he would discover and derail their greatest asset and deadliest assassin. HYDRA wanted him dead because they knew he would stop at nothing to recover the last family he has left. HYDRA wanted him dead because they suspected he was in love with Bucky Barnes, because he is in love with Bucky Barnes.

Steve Rogers is in love with Bucky Barnes. The sky is blue. _I am OK._

He keeps driving.

**  
  
**

 

*

 

Steve pulls into Pittsburgh around 8pm. He doesn’t have a lead on what to do next, but he has faith. He’ll figure it out. He always does.

He rumbles along backroads for a while, wondering what his next move should be. _“Here’s the plan,”_ his memory supplies, filling in countless mission debriefs with rough Fury imitation crayon. _And when, exactly, have I ever followed the plan?_

 _The algorithm_ , he thinks, suddenly, fiercely, though he’s thought of nothing else all day, like a spinning top going round and round the problem before it finds its mark. Once he’d gotten past page one, the original algorithm results had been attached, and proved to be terrifyingly accurate, down to the detail. He was surprised HYDRA hadn’t beaten them all ages ago, but either they were better heroes than even they expected or HYDRA had had plans for them from the beginning. He’d stopped reading after only a few predictions, _Operative 414 will realize and act upon his interpersonal romantic ties to—_ halting him in his tracks, the years-old animal at his temples gasping,  _Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky,_ coming to life once more, but he had enough. He’d never been content with postcards and _I am OK_. He didn’t want to _hear about_ it. He wanted to _see_ it.

Now, here he is, and still he is alone.

He pulls over and turns on his phone, searching again for that same Google result from earlier, that same unsettling feeling of being watched, calculated, understood all wrong. The algorithm predicted everything else… why not this?

Sure enough, there it is: Smithfield Street Bridge, West Carson Street side. Fucking scary. He reads a couple pages further, heart pounding, feeling like he’s not supposed to know his own future but unable to resist, until he can’t take any more. He pulls up Smithfield Street Bridge on GPS  — _how many bridges will we meet on, how many times will I lose him?_ — and gets back on the road.

Half an hour later, miraculously, silver glints in the darkness.

 

 

*

 

 

Bucky doesn’t expect him. Why would he? He’s only taking a stroll. He hasn’t checked his six in the few minutes Steve has been watching him; he’s thinking that maybe it’s a sign he’s getting better when Bucky whirls around, hand poised on the gun concealed at his hip, and growls, “I know you’re following me. Might as well do it where I can see your face.”

Steve hesitates for only a moment, fear warring with familiarity — _what if what if what if what if_ — and steps into the light. His whole body sings out a warning. He’s too exposed, too vulnerable. There’s nothing to cover him if a fight breaks out. There’s nowhere to hide.  _You never used to have to hide from Bucky_ , he chides himself, but his pulse won’t stop thrumming like a bass line beneath his ribs. He grips his shield a little tighter. He has no idea whether or not Bucky will be happy to see him, whether he’ll know him at all. This could go sour real fast. There’s no guarantee he won’t be dead at his best friend’s boots in a matter of minutes.

But Steve has faith.

Bucky shifts his stance, relaxing the moment he sees Steve’s face. The tension goes out of his shoulders, and he takes his hand off his gun. Steve lets himself breathe again.

“Hey, Buck,” he calls softly, taking another step forward. “Fancy meeting you here.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t smile. There were times, in the past, when just a few words like that would make Bucky’s whole face light up, but now Steve counts himself lucky if he gets even a glimpse of teeth, shy and soft, like he thinks he's not allowed to express emotion. Seventy years of disassociation and off-and-on cryofreeze will do that to a person.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in Steve's mouth. He doesn’t let himself dwell on it any longer. “I found something,” he says, without preamble.

This is how you deal with Bucky Barnes: quick, honest, and to the point. At least, this is how you deal with the Bucky Barnes standing in front of him, the one who feels safer in the shadows, who won’t let himself laugh without a hand on his knife, who can’t accept help and who shakes in the night. It was never the way you dealt with James Buchanan Barnes, who felt safer in the spotlight, who couldn’t laugh without a hand on his best friend’s shoulder, who always offered the help in the first place.

But that Bucky is quieter, now, buried beneath regret and technicolor nightmares and twenty inches of metal arm. He doesn’t show up very often. Steve misses him like hell.

“You’ll want to hear about this,” he says, suddenly sure of himself.

Bucky nods, tipping his head in the direction of the street. “Bar?” he asks, and his voice is wrecked and rough in a way that sets Steve’s teeth on edge. He sounds like he hasn’t spoken to another human being in a year.

Steve nods back, and Bucky turns. He doesn’t look back to see if Steve is following, and, that, at least, hasn’t changed; they both know Steve would follow him anywhere.

The bar is small but loud, full of locals packed together in groups. Most are the same age as he and Bucky, and the kind of work they do has taught them how to blend into a crowd, but as always Steve feels out of place. Gone are the quiet steady customers, the amicable chatter, the grand piano in the corner; here, instead, are television screens and rowdy college students. He’s lived in the twenty-first century for five years now, but he never stops missing the familiarities of his youth.

Beside him, Bucky orders two unremarkable beers and straightens, throwing back his shoulders until his metal arm creaks. By the sound of it, he needs a tune up. He won’t get much of that out here, on the run. Steve watches carefully, see how he winces and flexes his stiff fingers, and quietly files it away for future use.

“So,” Bucky says, perching on a cracked red leather seat. “What is this something I will _definitely_ want to hear about?”

Since he decided to track down Bucky, Steve has been working entirely on adrenaline and coffee and hope. It’s generally what he does. It’s kind of his shtick, you know, adrenaline and hope. Even before he was Captain America, when he was just a skinny asthmatic from Brooklyn picking fights where he didn’t belong, he’s always been about jumping in front of the firing squad and praying the bullets will miss you. But now he’s about to tell his oldest and best friend in existence that he’s desperately in love with him, and all of a sudden that gun feels pretty fucking loaded.

“Zola’s algorithm,” Steve says, and Bucky flinches at the name. “Do you know about it?”

“Yes,” Bucky says. The word rolls off his tongue like he’s unused to it. He might be. He’d been mindlessly compliant for so long, Steve is sure that, now he’s free, he’s exercising the right to protest a lot more frequently. Steve wonders how many things he’s turned down over the past few months, just to hear himself say it.

“Do you know what it does?”

“Yes.” Bucky huffs, and then adds, quietly, “I always knew, Steve. Everything they were doing. I knew and I still followed orders like—” He shakes his head. “I knew and I killed for them.”

“That wasn’t you,” Steve says firmly, and it’s not the first time. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“It _was_ me.” Any other moment, and that would’ve been harsher, almost a bite, but now Bucky only sounds resigned, like he’s tired of having this argument. “I don’t know why you keep insisting it wasn’t. It was HYDRA’s programming, but it was me. Maybe a different version than the one you know...” He shrugs his shoulders half-heartedly. “Bucky... the Winter Soldier... Whatever name you use, it’s still all me. You can’t just take the parts you like and pretend they make up a whole person. You have to take them all.”

Steve hesitates, and then, softly— “I know, Buck, and I do. But even then, even if you knew, they made it so you couldn’t refuse. None of it was your fault. You can’t blame yourself for any of it. Not forever.”

Bucky swallows uncomfortably, and Steve can’t help but watch his throat move. He’s seeing everything in a new light. Every breath, every glance, every shift in position— it all feels charged, electric, like an invitation to make something of it, now that he knows he’s allowed.

“What were you saying,” Bucky murmurs, clearing wanting to move on, “about the algorithm?”

Steve worries his lower lip with his teeth. “All of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records are online now. Natasha made sure of that. The results of the algorithm are public, too.” He hesitates again. “Have you read yours?”

Bucky looks at him sidelong, eyes dark and intense in the dim light of the bar.

“Don’t have any,” he says finally, which definitely means he went looking. “I guess it didn’t have enough to work with. Pretty much dropped off the grid once HYDRA got ahold of me. It uses your past to predict your future, right, and according to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records, I don’t have a future.” He cracks a grin, and it’s breathtakingly bright and gone in the split of a second, before Steve even has time to register it. “I’m a ghost, remember?”

“Yes,” Steve breathes, still reeling from that smile, and he would have agreed to anything just to see it again. It takes him a moment to remember himself. “I, uh. I read mine.”

“Yeah?” Bucky leans forward on his elbows, angling himself towards Steve. Suddenly, he’s got all of Bucky’s attention. “Anything worth mentioning?”

Bucky already knows the answer to that; Steve wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have something worth mentioning. He’s been trying to respect Bucky’s desire not to be found, and it hasn’t been easy; there have been moments when he would’ve liked nothing more than to reach out and find his best friend at the ends of his fingertips.

“It, uh. It was right. About a lot of things.” Steve’s skin feels warm, stretched too tightly. “It predicted my joining the Avengers... working for S.H.I.E.L.D. It even... well, it predicted you, actually.”

“It predicted me,” Bucky echoes slowly, clearly not following.

Steve nods, looks away; busies himself with the edge of his napkin, trying to act casual. By the burn of Bucky’s gaze still on him, he can tell it’s not working. “It, uh. Said you’d find me. After. That you’d show up in my apartment, and...” His hands tighten around the napkin. “Leave again.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “That’s one hell of an accurate math problem.”

“It predicted this, too,” Steve continues, ignoring him. “That I’d come here… tell you all of this…” He laughs nervously. “Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess.”

“I’ll say.” Bucky taps a finger against the bar, quiet and stuttering. Steve tries to decode it out of habit, but it’s not a message; only a nervous pattern. “It predict anything else? What’re we gonna do next?”

Steve blushes, unable to meet Bucky’s eyes. If he doesn’t say this now, he never will. “It, um. We… We get together.”

Bucky’s hand freezes.

“Yeah, well,” he says slowly. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, Rogers, but we’re sitting right next to each other. I hardly think that’s noteworthy.”

“No, I—” Steve takes a deep breath. “ _Together._ Steady dates and a shared apartment and holding hands in the park. Together.”

Bucky doesn’t speak for a long moment. Finally, carefully, he says, “That doesn’t have to mean anything,” and Steve knows how it feels to jump in front of the firing squad and realize the bullets are already halfway through you. Here is the weight of the gun in his mouth, and here is the way he shouldn’t have pulled the trigger, except that he already did and there’s nothing he can do about it.

(Pounding heart and unstitched lungs and a weight like the whole world bearing down on the sharp bones of his ribs and, _oh,_ now he knows the reason it’s called a _crush_.)

“Right,” he forces out, soft and hoarse. “Right, yeah, I know that. I just thought— I don’t know what I thought.”

“I need a cigarette,” Bucky mutters, and then pauses. “Do you mind?”

Steve shakes his head, lost, and watches him get up. _Of course,_ he thinks, because Bucky is always leaving him. This is the one battle he can’t win, no matter how hard he tries, how tight he holds, or how desperately he begs. Bucky is always running.

But, _God_ , there’s not a single fucking force in this universe that can stop Steve from running after him, so that’s exactly what he does.

Bucky finds him in 1931, in 1943, in 2014, and Steve finds him in front of the bar, leaning against the wall and smoking like his life depends on it. His eyes are closed, head tipped back, and he doesn’t even look up when the door opens.

“It’s just an algorithm,” he says flatly. He sounds like he’s reciting someone else’s words. “You don’t have to date me just because a dead Swiss scientist told you to.”

“No, see, that’s—” Steve laughs, but it’s all wrong. All of this is wrong. “That’s not why. I mean, the algorithm made me face it, but I think— I think I’ve always— I just imagined this would go a little differently, that’s all.” He shakes his head and leans against the wall beside Bucky. “I was so sure…”

Bucky frowns, opening his eyes. “Sure of what?”

Steve glances over at him; at the shadows of his eyelashes against his cheeks, at the smoke curling around his metal fingers, at the boy — the _man_ — he’s known his whole life and still doesn’t know at all.

“I was so sure you loved me back,” he says, and he doesn’t like the way it sounds like an ending.

Bucky looks at him sharply. “ _Back_ — You— It’s just a _math_ problem. You _can’t_ — Not when I’ve spent so long—” He makes a frustrated noise. “Don’t fuck with me, Rogers. This isn’t funny.”

Steve sighs and steals the cigarette from his fingertips. “Come on, Buck, you’re trained in espionage, it’s not so hard.” He takes a long drag of Bucky’s cigarette, and coughs. “Wow, good thing I don’t have asthma anymore, huh? God bless America.”

“ _Steve,_ ” Bucky breathes. “Come on, having an existential crisis here, _please,_ will you just— Give me back my fucking cigarette and explain yourself.”

“I love you,” Steve says, doing just that. “I’m _in love_ with you— always have been. It is just a math problem, that’s true, but it made me realize what I’ve been missing. I guess all I needed was a push. You’re familiar with the push, aren’t you? Technical term. Goes a little something like this—” He shoves gently at Bucky’s arm. Bucky shoves back, less gently. Steve tries again, but Bucky drops the cigarette, pushes him flush against the wall, and kisses him, metal hand cold against his cheek. It’s a perfect match. Give and take, yin and yang: Steve moves and Bucky moves with him. Steve groans and Bucky swallows it with red tongue and hungry hands.

When they finally break apart, Bucky gasps, “You _idiot_ ,” and rests his forehead on Steve’s shoulder. “You ridiculous, clueless, godforsaken _idiot_. God, I hate you so much.”

Steve is still catching his breath. “You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl, Buck.”

“I learned from the best, Mr _Are You Familiar with the Push_.” Bucky curls metal fingers in Steve’s hair and kisses him again. “I love you. I _love you_. I just couldn’t— couldn’t believe it could be anything but one-sided, not after… after all of it. Why do you think I left?” He grips Steve’s hip a little tighter, pulling him close. “I couldn’t accept that you still cared about me because I didn’t think I deserved it.”

“And now?”

“I’m working on it. I’m not magically fixed, you know. I may well never be. But I’m working on it.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want you any other way. You know that, don’t you? I love you.”

Bucky laughs, soft and shy. It might be the first time he’s laughed in a year. “So I’ve heard. And I love _you_ , you fucking punk. Algorithm or not.”

“Yeah,” Steve say with a grin. “Algorithm or not.”

 

 

*

 

 

This is the way it has always been: them against the world. Hand in hand or chest to chest, saving civilians or saving themselves, it’s never mattered as long as they meet again, somewhere in the middle. Where Steve is, Bucky is sure to be no more than a step behind. Where Bucky goes, Steve needn’t follow, because he knows that Bucky will always return to him.

_(When I come home, I want to come home to you.)_

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
